“I beg your pardon,” said Dr. Hallahan, recovering himself; “we’ve brought Captain French here, he’s very badly hurt, and I can’t take him any farther. Perhaps you could show us where to put him--or ask Mr. Glasgow?” “Mr. Glasgow has left;” the voice was nasal and cockney. “You can take the gentleman into his room for the present, but I’m going to have an auction of this furniture in less than a week. I’m just taking an inventory now.” Sheets of foolscap paper were scattered on the table, the list of the furniture sprawled over them in large, black, irregular writing. Slaney had seen that writing before; she felt as if she were in a bad dream--a dream that she had dreamt before, one that was both tragic and ridiculous. “Had I arrived lawst evening things might have been different,” went on the yellow-haired lady; “but I missed my train.” Then, with an air that irresistibly suggested the footlights, she moved from behind the table into a clear space in the room. The bad dream culminated; Slaney knew what was coming. “Perhaps I had better introduce myself,” said the yellow-haired lady,--“I am Mrs. Glasgow.” CHAPTER XV Six months afterwards, when the August sunshine was hot and yellow, and the streets of Dublin were in a fever from the crowd of the Horse Show week, a breeze was to be found under the elms by the polo ground in Phœnix Park. It came from the south, where the Dublin mountains were cool and blue; it was sweet with miles of warm grass, and it was nectar to the polo ponies as they were led up and down with twitching tails and soapy necks after their turn of play. The people who had driven out to see the match sat in the shade, while men and ponies wheeled and raced in the glaring heat, and stroke answered stroke, and the ball was worried about in a medley of polo sticks and ponies’ legs. Lady Susan was sitting on an outside car by the rails, never taking her eyes off the game. “I call that a brute of a pony,” she said, “don’t you, Captain Onslow?” to a man who stood by the car. “I mean the roan that my husband is on. Look there”--as the ball went skipping over the sunny sward, with the roan pony and his rider heading the rush after it--“see how he’s pulling, and if he gets his temper up he bolts, and there’s no holding him. I can’t bear to see Hughie on him.” “I don’t think you need be anxious about your husband,” said Captain Onslow, inwardly a little piqued by this excessive attention to the game and its dangers, “that pony’s about the best on the ground when he’s properly played, and that’s just what is happening to him. Well hit, indeed!” as Hugh turned the ball with a smooth and clean back-hander. “I don’t care,” murmured Lady Susan, “I call polo a beastly dangerous game.” “It’s a true bill against Major Bunbury, isn’t it?” asked Captain Onslow, presently, lifting an eyebrow in the direction of two people standing by the rails. “You go and ask them,” replied Lady Susan.